Just Keep Moving
by Random Guise
Summary: Marion recounts to Mutt a story that was told to her by Indiana Jones. Special holiday post to kick off July 4th. I don't own these characters, but I am going to BBQ later on today.


**A/N: Takes place several years before Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.**

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Just Keep Moving

Twelve-year old Mutt Williams looked for his mother throughout the small two-bedroom room. "Mom?" Not in the bedroom. "Mom?" Not in the kitchen. He walked into the living room and saw no one either, but through the curtains some movement outside caught his eye. He parted them and looked out, to see his mother Marion doing some type of balancing act on the ground.

He quietly snuck out the front door and stole around to the corner of the house where he was able to listen as well as watch. On the grass under an old elm, his mother was humming while she walked along an imaginary line, balancing as though she were on a high wire.

"Mom?" he asked.

"Mutt!" she said, embarrassed as she immediately pretended to be examining the grass, pulling up an imaginary weed. Her face was far too red for the cool of the late spring day.

"What was that?"

"What was what?" she asked innocently.

"You know, this" he said as he mimicked her movements. "It looked like you were trying to land an airplane."

"An airplane?" she asked before starting to laugh. "No, it wasn't anything like that. It was something someone told me about before."

Someone. When mom said 'someone' it usually meant only one man. "Indiana Jones? Again? Not that old fossil."

"He's not much older than I am" she said with indignation. "Besides, he might take that as a compliment; it's hard to say with him. But with someone who's been around as much as he has, you have to expect to hear stories."

Mutt sat down on the grass. "Okay, tell the story and let's get it over with; I'll stop you if I've heard it before, promise."

"Okay, but get up and help me while I explain. We need some of that lumber over there" she said pointing to a pile beside the fence. The neighbor was supposed to help put up a new fence but the project hadn't gotten beyond the accumulation of the beams and fence slats.

As they worked she started explaining. "This happened when Indy was still young; he had accompanied his father on a boat trip to South America where the older Dr. Jones was doing some research with a remote jungle tribe along the Amazon River; it all had to do with his Holy Grail studies. Indy would have been about your age if I remember right." They continued to move planks to form a rough, slightly lopsided rectangle. "His father conducted his research and interviewed some of the tribal elders. Before they left, they invited Henry to go through a ritual to add his family to their tribe; he didn't want to decline and offend them, but he wasn't really the physical type and didn't look forward to it. Indy volunteered to do it instead, and the elders agreed."

She continued as she shifted a few beams closer together. "The tribe had a pen they had constructed for wild boar. They were fierce creatures, and very dangerous. The ritual consisted of the new person balancing as they walked completely around the sty on the top of the fence. Falling off into the sty was potentially deadly, while falling the other direction proved unworthiness." She looked at the rectangle and thought for a moment. She grabbed some nearby flower pots and put them at intervals around the shape. "Fence posts" she noted.

She stepped up on the beam and began to walk around the perimeter, throwing her arms out for balance. "So Indy climbed up on the fence and began to step around the pen; the hogs were squealing and grunting, shaking the fence as they jostled beneath him while the tribe was singing and clapping on the ground outside. He must have been something to look at, waving his arms madly like being in a crazy dance. The fence posts stuck up over the top and he had to do a step-hop to get over them." She demonstrated by stepping over one of the flower pots. "He almost fell in on one corner and just managed to make it to the next section of fence; the trick was to just keep moving. At one point he stopped and took off his jacket; the tribe went wild with that feat. He managed to make it all the way around, and then to show off he jumped down with a somersault. Not only was he and his father a member of the tribe then, but I think that was the day he really became of age in wanting to become an archaeologist."

"Okay, nice story. But why are you doing it today?" Mutt queried.

"That was something your da...ndy archaeologist fossil celebrated every year on this date; that's why I know it was special for him. So we used to mark a place on the ground or get some chalk and make a rectangle in the street and recreate the 'dance of death' as he liked to exaggerate. It was fun, and we made up our own tunes to go with it."

"I see. So what you're saying is that it's _Indy Pen Dance Day_ you were celebrating?" he asked with a straight face.

Marion stared at him for a moment. "I don't know what you want to do with your life Mutt, but don't try to make a living as a comic; you'll starve."

The End

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 **A/N: Yes, it is a bad pun and I'm glad Mutt said it and not me. BUT if it had to be uttered, it is a perfect one for the Fourth of July in the United States.  
**


End file.
